


Élégie

by Scrumpadouchus



Category: League of Legends
Genre: (you're welcome), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Gore, Character Death, F/M, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Now with an alternate happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-05-24 11:27:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14953802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrumpadouchus/pseuds/Scrumpadouchus
Summary: For their kind, tales told of a sacred place where those who wished to find final rest could go to disappear. If a mated pair decided to leave together, it was said that their souls would intertwine and become one, eventually becoming reborn together. Some went alone once weighed down by millennia of memories and experience. Others would go with their soulmates - platonic or otherwise - and become whole.Rakan was going so he could save Xayah.  This was the only way.OR;A fight goes wrong and Xayah gets hurt. Rakan tries to fix it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I sure did write this. I don't even know if I did any part of it justice, but either way this exists now. I was in the mood for angst like a month ago so I did this partially to vent. I took a lot of incentive to world building here, and I wasn't gonna post it but then I figured, why not. Also I did weird formatting here... I forgoed quotation marks because I thought it flowed better? But I might still go back and edit them all in.  
> (UPDATE 24.07.18 I wanted a better summary so I changed it slightly. I'm not sure if I'm satisfied.)  
> (UPDATE 05.10.18 Wrote an alternate happy end for people who were suffering lol  
>  Whatever, I'm getting off track. Enjoy.  
>   
> 

  


(*)*(*) 

  


There’s a slowly spreading dark spot on her dress, just above the belly button and seeping into the fabric slowly. It reminds him of dark turpentine out of an injured tree; oozing without stop.

He pushes a hand there to attempt to staunch the flow and she cries out, thrashing slightly against his clutch.

Rakan tries shushing her, tries soothing her with magic from his hand but she screams and tries pushing him away with all her strength. Horrified, Rakan withdraws his hand and Xayah gasps, chest heaving, silent tears running down her face.

_I’m fine - I’m fine._ She finally says, and he helps her to her feet. After a few steps she stumbles, and when he moves to catch her she cuts her cry short by biting her lip so hard it bleeds and trailing into a whimper. 

She’s light when he picks her up, holding her close and steady to his chest as possible. (Lighter than usual? Was he insane - he couldn’t tell. Him, who knew her breaths better than his own!) 

_I’ve got you_ \- the words leave him in a rush while she stares up at him like he’s the only person in the world - _I’m gonna get you to help._  


(*)

When he arrives at camp people rush around them like river water over stones. He _hates_ it. He knows _she_ hates it. He wants to hiss and spit at them, and when he does they back off. 

The doctors take her from his arms without asking, and despite fluffing out his feathers and trying to intimidate them away they take her without hardly a glance at him.

They can do more than him. It’s irrational for him to cling to him like this, but he doesn’t want to let her go.

The medical tent smells bitter and sour enough that his nose crinkles. It distracts him for a moment, but then their doctor goes to remove Xayah’s clothes and he almost leaps at the other man’s throat.

The smelly, Shimon doctor has to remove him, shoving him outside and closing the tent’s flap without further comment.

Rakan paces outside until he runs a rut into the ground.

It’s an eternity. He is born and dies many times before they finally open the tent flap again and let him in.

Xayah’s still, white bandages wrapped tight around her gut. He drops to her side, takes her hand. Her eyes flicker open. They meet. Her cheek is soft under his palm.

His love would live to fight another day. He presses their foreheads together, nuzzles her cheek. Then lies as close to her as he can manage without touching her stomach. Xayah’s respirations eventually even out, but he stays awake, counting each breath.

  


(*)* 

She’s pale. 

Every day, her complexion goes paler. She walks a little less; and her face pinches tight whenever she goes to a sitting position from lying down or vice versa. He changes her bandages every day, then twice a day, then three times a day with drainage black and smelling like rot. 

They stay in their tent now, everyone forbidden to visit except the doctors that show up so often. They come with bitter-smelling pastes and pans of clean water, torturing her with each session that was supposed to make her better. 

It doesn’t. They always leave quiet and with expressions more withdrawn each time.

Xayah sleeps a lot more now. The doctors said that was good. _It meant she was healing._ She lies covered in blankets with her head on his lap and he strokes her hair slowly, quietly singing a song without proper words. When his hand brushes her wing he feels something come loose, and as he stares feathers drop easily through his fingers.

It was just a fluke.

He goes again, and just as the first time feathers drop free at his touch, floating gently to their bedroll and dissolving into dust a few seconds after separating from her body. She remains motionless under his touch, complexion waxy and smooth.

His singing stops. He withdraws his hand from her feathers like it had scalded him.

His love. She was getting better. She _had_ to be getting better.

There was no other option.

  
(*)*(*) 

They talk still; whenever she can keep her eyes open long enough. 

_Rakan_ , she says one night in a hoarse voice that didn’t belong to her. _I don’t feel good._ Her face markings look all the more stark against her pallid skin.

_You should eat something. Then you’ll feel better_. He urges gently. Her fierce body had lost its muscle in a matter of days, thighs becoming thin and her face losing its round youthful cheeks practically overnight. Almost all her feathers had shed, leaving her wings skeletal and much like tent poles wrapped in leather.

She shakes her head. _I’ll get sick_ -she rasps, but Rakan tries again; _Drink something?_ then nudges a cup of herbal tea towards her mouth. Xayah’s face creases and turns up at the offering, turning side to side weakly.

_I’m not thirsty_. She closes her eyes and presses her face back into the pillow. _Just lie with me._

Xayah sounds drowsy and quiet, her norm now for the past few days. He couldn’t remember the last time she had spoken in over a whisper.

_Okay honey…_ Rakan moves the cup far over to the side then spoons around her, dropping heavy blankets over them and putting efforts into channeling heat from him into her. _Whatever you want._

He was careful not to touch her abdomen; now bruised darker than a plum and spreading darker and more peripheral every day. Eventually she goes silent and he snuffles at her neck. Her scent was different, muted and off. _Sickly_. Xayah’s violin song was slowed and hushed, especially as she slept. Sometimes he feared it would stop entirely.

_But that was impossible. A baseless fear._ Rakan strokes at her hair, ignoring the strands that fall loose. _Tomorrow would be a better day._

  


(*)*(*) *

Sometimes Xayah stares at him; sad eyes following him as he scrambles around their tent, gathering supplies for her dressing change. She seems centuries older when she watches him like this. There’s something she wants to say, he knows it, but whatever this secret is she’s determined to keep it to herself.

He kneels at her side with the bitter-smelling paste spread on woven gauze and the new bandages all in a pile. Hovering his hand over her abdomen dressing, he hesitates.

He hated this part more than everything. He hates it, he hates that he has to do it. But they needed to clean it, otherwise she’d never heal. 

Xayah has her eyes clenched shut, breathing shaky as she waits for him to begin the daily torture anew. The bandages peel back with a sticky squelch, dripping with black drainage. As the lower layers started getting revealed she started trembling, and as the last few pieces of gauze are peeled away she screams, legs drawing up and thrashing her head to the side.

_Sweetheart_ \- he attempts to soothe her, squeezes her hand while sporting a pained expression. He hated doing this to her. If he could take her pain onto himself he’d do it in a heartbeat. When she calms he takes a breath and prepares to inspect her.

The skin around where she was stabbed is grey, leeched of colour. Dark blood oozes slowly out of the deep wound, peri wound flesh crusted black. Dark tendrils ran up from the site like branches, veins touching the area corrupted from some foul poison.

With careful hands he wrings out a cloth with salt water, holds it over her stomach as it drips. He braces himself, and watches her tense as the first few droplets hit her.

_I’ll be quick._ He promises. _Okay? Then we can lie down and rest._

She gives a tiny nod, eyes still squeezed shut as tight as they could go.

He lowers the cloth - wipes it lightly across the wound and she hisses through gritted teeth, head falling back as she arches her body.

_I’m sorry, I’m sorry_ \- he repeats it until the word is useless, sponging blackened drainage and rotting tissue off of her. It was a useless endeavor. He’d only have to repeat this process in a few hours.

Once it was as clean as it could get he lays the gauze and poultice back onto the site, and holds her thin body up with one arm while he wraps the fresh bandages around with the other. It’s over before he could count to ten.

_There. You’re done_. He says, and strokes her hair, tucking it back behind a feathered ear. Her face glistens with tracts of silent tears.

_We can rest now. You did so well._

Silently she closes her eyes with a gentle flutter, song slowing all the while.

  


(*)*(*) *(*)

Her eyes are a faded muddy brown today. That’s what he notices first. Brilliant gold faded to its base. Sheen gone. Spark gone. Gone like her feathers - gone like her _magic._

When she breathes it’s a rasp, shallow and pained. Doctors didn’t visit anymore. He had scared them all away. Then the new ones he had asked to come had also been scared off. They had given up far too easily! How could they say she was a lost cause? She was so strong. _Is_ still strong. Her vigor and vitality ensured she would heal, if only they put forth a little more effort. Why were they all so _useless?_

Xayah’s dressing needs to be changed again but when he tries to reach for it she takes his hand with cool fingers and weakly leads his appendage away. _Don’t_ \- she croaks desperately - _don’t look at it. Just lie with me. Tell me a story._

Conflicted, he keeps his hand hovering over her and stares at the shadowing dressing. When he looks back to Xayah her face is pleading, and his own heart sinks into his gut.

He could never deny her. Not now.

Rakan wraps her back up in a blanket and lies down, pulling her as gently as he can into his arms; pressed her thin body into his for heat. She squeezes his hand and Rakan hums, pressing a kiss to her limp hair.

_Did I tell you the one about the sun and moon spirits? It’s one of my favourites._

She’d heard it at least ten times. This was one he’d tell her whenever he was feeling romantic, and whenever she was feeling sad and lonesome. He changed the story each time to suit his mood.

                _No. I’d like to hear it_. She replies. Her voice is as soft as falling snow.

Rakan swallows. His throat is dry but he starts; full of confidence in his tale.

                _Born at the beginning of time were two celestial beings. The aspect of the sun, and the aspect of the moon. The moon was beautiful, cold and intelligent. She sought to be inspiration to the people who basked in her glow, but she was solitary and lonely. The sun was radiant, much loved and praised by all who thrived on his warmth. Yet in his widespread reach he was lost, unfocused_.

He pauses to gather his thoughts though they were scattered and turbulent as a storm, and Xayah squeezes his hand again.

                _Keep going_. She prompts. Rakan nods. He wouldn’t dare stop now.

                _They meet by chance during an eclipse, and as he laid eyes on her the first time the Sun aspect knew he had never before seen such beauty. But after only a few precious, wondrous minutes she was gone. He decided he had to find her again no matter what and travelled from one side of the universe to the other, searching for her sound. When they met again, he beseeches her upon his knees, singing her praises and is rebuffed several times before she allows him to follow in her orbit_.

_Soon it was obvious that his reason to shine was to help her glow even brighter. He’d do anything to help her achieve her potential. He moved planets and crushed stars for her, leaving only stardust behind. Whenever they danced, life itself was reformed. The universe became a better place_.

_As millennia passed their hearts grew warmer and closer together until they could no longer stand to be apart. When the time came that they were meant to be one he offers up a hand and they travel to the unknown ends of the universe, their stardust mixing together and becoming something new entirely, something beyond what either of them could ever be alone_.

A soft sigh from his arms. He stops his story.

                _I’d have liked that_ ; _To be reborn together with you._ Xayah says, tone heartbreakingly wistful _._

Not for the first time, Rakan feels like he’s being stabbed in the gut. _Why couldn’t it have been him?_

                _You still can be,_ he insists, desperation rising to almost choke him. Surely she wasn’t giving up on the possibility of the spiritual border, the area where many married couples tired of their eternal life chose to depart hand in hand and be reborn together. It had been the final trip of his parents, and he had hoped to travel there with Xayah some-day a long, _long_ time from now. They were actually camped fairly close to the fated mountain now - the doctors thought proximity one of their continents largest magic veins would assist in her healing.

                _No_. She shakes her head lightly. _You need to promise me something Rakan. Please_.

The world suddenly feels a lot colder.

                _What do you need_? The words leave his mouth automatically, stiff like bark and just as wooden. He’d do anything for her, but he had no idea if he’d be able to bear whatever request she had for him.

_Don’t be sad_. The words are only half there, and she sounds so tired.

_Please find love again. You have too much to offer to be alone forever_.  _Just… think of me sometimes_ … _and I’ll be happy_.

                _I_ …

His tongue freezes, and he can feel the hammering of his heart in his chest. She didn’t mean that. There was no way. She couldn’t mean such a thing.

_…I’m not leaving you_.

She chuckles weakly.

                _You know what I’m saying_. _After I_ -

He couldn’t hear her say it. She was wrong.

                _\- You won’t._ He interrupts _. You’re getting better_.

                _Please, Mieli_. _Do this for me_. This was the second time he’s ever begged him for anything. Hearing it makes him feel sick. He shakes his head like a flagrant child.

                _I love you and only you, now and forever_. _Don’t ask me to love anyone else_.

Xayah sighs again, too exhausted to argue with him.

                _Okay._

He curls back around her and tries to calm himself unsuccessfully. His magic wouldn’t take to her, the medicine wasn’t helping. Everyone else had given up but him.

Rakan would never give up, no matter what. She would survive or the world would face the consequences.

What would he do without her? All he could imagine was blackness. There was no future he could imagine - not without her at his side.

 

(*)*(*)*(*)

 

                There’s a time long ago where he was afraid to tell Xayah he loved her - back when they had no words for what they were, except that Xayah refused to think that it was anything more than temporary and was afraid to face her feelings lest they destroy what was left of her bleeding heart.

But they moved past all of that. Affection became commonplace. He thinks he’s said ‘I love you’ more in the past week than he had their entire time together. Even if she didn’t respond verbally or open her eyes to acknowledge him she’d give him a tiny smile at least, and that was enough for him.

Though she’s slow to awaken now, and unpredictable at that, he could count on her to eventually stir and respond to his declarations of love or promises of marriage.

                Today when he woke she was already awake, sitting up and staring at him with an unreadable expression. It was a pleasant surprise. Hope bloomed in him like spring flowers.

                _My love, you’re awake early. How are you feeling today_?

Rakan sits and tries to slide his arm around her but she pushes him off.

                _Don’t touch me_. She rasps, words hardly intelligible. He passes her a glass of water but she throws it once it’s in her hand.

                _Miella_ \- He tries, confused to her outburst but she scowls at him with more fire than she’s shown in over a week. _Are you in pain_?

There were tinctures left by the doctors that would help with that, if she could stomach them. He jumps up from bed and dives for their pack.

                She shakes her head.

He sits still and searches her for some clue as to why she was acting this way. He doesn’t like what he sees. Her eyes were scary. She wasn’t there in them; light on but the owner wasn’t home. Whoever laid behind there wasn’t Xayah, wasn’t the strong woman he loved and knew so well.

                _I hate you_.  She finally declares like it was the one truth of the universe. _I’m glad I never married you_. _This is your fault_.

Rakan stares at her, body frozen in place as her words sunk in. It was true of course, though hearing her say it makes the knife dig deeper. He blinks rapidly and tries to shake it off.

_You should’ve gotten the hit, s_ he continues; _this should be you_. _You were useless even as a meat shield_. _Why did I even keep you around_?

                _Miella, you’re not well_ \- he tries palms up and nonthreatening. Slowly he moves them to attempt to touch her and comfort her, but she flinches when he gets too close.

                _I wish I never met you_. She finishes while staring straight into his eyes; a stranger with her face. _I would have rather died from those bandits raping me than have been saved by you and followed around_.

He nods in acknowledgement, but his mind was blank right now. Words dropped from his mouth without thought.

  _Want me to comb your hair for you? Wash you up a bit? Then we can go back to sleep. Or I can carry you outside for a while - we can lie down out in the sunlight. Whatever you want my love, whatever you want I’ll do it_.

She pauses, searching him for something, then finally rolls her eyes, scoffing.

                _If it’ll make you stop whining_.

                _Of course_.  He swallows, rifles for their brush.  _It’s my pleasure_.

She sits still then, silent while he runs the bristles through her hair. Clumps come off in the bristles and he doesn’t stare; just removes them silently and continues his grooming.

He braids her thin locks after, loosely so it doesn’t pull and give her a headache, and sponge bathes her with water boiled in a kettle. The cloth he runs over her boney limbs, under her arm pits, her chest and stomach- careful to avoid getting the dressing wet - then down to her privates. When he wets a second cloth he does her back, washing it quickly and patting dry before changing their bedding.

                _Do you want to hear a story_? He asks, already fumbling through his mind for any ones that’d make her happy. Perhaps the one about the crab-catcher, or the one with the silkworms that wove cocoons with strands that when turned to thread could be used to store memories. 

She shoots him a glare, then lowers herself back down with shaking arms and lies so her back faces him.

                _Shut up for once. That’s what I’d like to hear_. _Silence_.

                _I can do that. No problem_. _Anything you want_ ; He babbles, hands on his knees and staring at her back. Her spine juts out like the dorsal fin of a marine creature, and it sickens him to see it but he can’t look away.

There are many ways she has changed, but he thinks that this way has been the worst so far. So he sits and watches her nap, and when he’s sure she’s not going to wake up again he places his hand over hers and sings a prayer under his breath until he too nods off, still sitting.

 

When he wakes he’s the only one in the tent. Panic seizes him and he throws back the blankets as if she could somehow be hiding under them.

_Xayah???_ He yells, scrambling out of the tent so fast he nearly trips through the leather _.  Xayah_!?!

Nothing right outside their tent. No sign in the clearing. Those that had been travelling with them had packed up and gone; whether it be leagues away or just out of sight to give them a semblance of privacy he did not know, nor did he care.

But he could hear it: her song anchoring his soul clearly cutting through the rhythm of the life around him. When he runs to the tree cover he fears the worst, but only finds her standing still while clutching a tree branch in a white-knuckled grip for balance.

A dry twig snaps under his feet. She jumps and turns to face him. Black blood has soaked through her bandages and has stained her dress, dripping down her legs.

                _Honey?_ He approaches her slowly, like one would a wild animal. She looks about to spook any moment. _What are you doing out here? Come, let’s go back to camp_.

She shakes her head vehemently.

                _Where are we? Why are we here_?

                _We were on our way to the mountain pass. We’re camping because you’re sick, you need to rest so you can heal._ He explains slowly, and her eyebrows furrow as his words bounce right off her. She’s hearing him but not comprehending.  He reaches out to take her hand but she snatches it away.

                The action throws her off balance. She teeters for a few breathless seconds, then falls like dead weight. Rakan dives to catch her but she kicks him away, scrambling back to her feet and sprinting as fast as she can through the forest with no heed to the thorns or brambles that were in her way. A vine catches her foot. She falls.

Brush rips at his skin as he chases but he reaches her, torn and bleeding from shallow scratches but otherwise the only area of concern was her dressing half torn off and oozing from the strain.

                _Let’s go back_. He stands with her still in his arms. She struggles against him.

                _No- I want to go to a river_. _It’s been weeks since I’ve bathed_.

Rakan blinked, confused.

_I washed you this morning_.

                _Did you_?

She seems puzzled, forehead creasing as she struggles to remember. Rakan takes this chance to get a better grip on her and start walking back. When she kicks him to be let down he lets her walk but supports almost all of her weight.

                _I want to go home_. She says then once their tent is in sight, starts dragging her feet hard enough to leave trails in the dirt.

                _I do too_! _We are going home_. Rakan says back, not certain what she meant. Long ago she had said that home was where ever he was, so technically yes, she _was_ home.

                _No, Korpvei’ne kyla_. The words are a jumble on her slurred tongue, her human accent thick like it was when he first met her, but she sounds so sure, so certain that even he pauses for a second.

They had been gone for decades. An entire village of people gone and its buildings defaced. They both had gone there to investigate and to pay respects multiple times and no sign of survivors had ever been discovered. Rakan averts his eyes from hers.

                _Soon honey. But you need to rest and get your strength back first_.

He holds his breath and waits to see if she tolerates the fib. Mud brown eyes stare dully at him, but eventually she nods and lets herself be half guided, half lifted to their quarters.

Back at their tent she lies back down with a sense of finality. She doesn’t resist when he strips off her old bandages, or when he douses her in salt water and stinging potions before placing fresh white bandages over her wound. The stitches the last doctor had tried to suture up the wound with had torn open, easily showing her beef red insides. She doesn’t even make a sound as he touches it. Not a single whimper.

                He wants to go try to find a healer, ask if this was something normal, if there was something they could give her.  Perhaps some of their associates would still be camping in the next clearing over.

He gets up to leave.

But that means he’d have to leave her alone, and he’s one step outside the exit of their tent before the terror of that thought grounds him. What if she gets up and leaves again while he was gone? She could fall or spirits forbid, if she actually managed to find a river… he would never see her again.

Outside the tent he hears her barely-there voice, cracking and almost impossible to hear through their leather shelter.

                _Dad?_

He tears the tent flap open, expecting something, _someone_. He’s tensed up, ready to fight or yell or do _something_ to protect her. It’s irrational. He’s been there the whole time, who could’ve slipped in during the two seconds he stepped outside? He hadn’t seen another living being besides Xayah in days.

But the room is empty; or rather, exactly as it was when he left it. Nothing - not another person, not even a ghost. It was almost… disappointing. Xayah’s staring at the ceiling with glassy eyes, but they slip shut again just as fast as she falls back to sleep. He strains to listen, but the sound of the world is exactly as it was before.

So he sits back down at her side and waits.

                She would get better. The fact that she had the energy to get up and walk was definitely an improvement.

 

(*)*(*)*

 

 

Xayah looks as dying flower petals. She sleeps curled up, hands pulled in to rest just under the chin, legs tucked in and chest pulled to her knees. The foetal position of the new to the world and the soon to leave it.

                Rakan sits vigil, but all he can think of is the constant, rhythmic ticking of a clock. 

In his mind it plays forever, and for some reason he couldn’t find the rationale for it. To make time seem slower? He pushes it to the back of his head and tries to focus on her music instead, still calm and slow on rosined strings in spite of her circumstances.

Her clothes are brittle as dried paper left in the sun. When he touches it, it crumbles into ash. A dead calm settles over Rakan as he sits and stares. After a silent minute he moves again. Methodically he brushes the residue off her skin, and when it loses contact with her body it disappears entirely, smoking into nothing like dried ice.

                Conjuring clothes was one of the basest skills they learned. They started practising at it as toddlers, and most could form simple tunics stably by the time they could run.

He stares at her mottled skin, thinned limp hair and protruding ribs. Her chest still expands with each slow rattling breath, and when he takes her hand in his he notices the dark fingertips, the bluing nailbeds.

Xayah couldn’t keep her projections stable anymore.

                That made his next choice easy. He squeezes her hand.

                _Honey, if you hear me… I’m taking us to the final summit_.

Her fingers twitch minutely, and he smiles weakly at her.

                _Yeah, I thought so too. I can bring us right now!  I’ll be extra careful with you. Okay?_ He cups her face briefly, strokes his thumb across the faded clan markings on her face.

                For their kind, tales told of a sacred place where those who wished to find final rest could go to disappear. That is, if you had the tenacity to go to the far reaches of the continent and hike the three-day trip to the top of the mountain. Getting to the base of the mountain alone was a difficult task due to thick trees and taxing forests with a tendency to misdirect those without magic blood.

Half way up had the overlapping between mortal and spirit realm increase to an extent so oppressive human kind could not tolerate it. By the time the top was reached one was no longer in the mortal world. If they stayed long enough they’d eventually… cease to be. Their corporeal forms would dissolve and their souls would pass on, returning to the life stream of magic where upon all life originates. The mountain was practically a vat for it - if he closed his eyes and concentrated he could almost see it in his minds eye, a deep well of magic that shone brighter than gold and sparkled more than the rarest jewel.

If a mated pair decided to leave together, it was said that their souls would intertwine and become one, eventually becoming reborn together. 

 Natural caves and worn paths had been encouraged to form in the stone by previous visitors, and lead the way on the slow climb to the top. It was a scenic pilgrimage to one’s final destination.

Rakan knew. He had climbed it once before.

 Some went alone once weighed down by millennia of memories and experience. Others would go with their soulmates - platonic or otherwise - and become whole.

                He was going so he could save Xayah.  This was the only way.

 

(*)*(*)

 

The sun filtered through the thick forest canopy, making the leaves glow red around the edges. He’d been walking through the grove for a while now, but he was certain that he didn’t have much longer to go. Rakan held the bundle closer to his chest, the soft blanket warm in the afternoon heat. It was stories of their kind that sent him this deep into Ionian timberlands, and hope that brought him this far.

The trees grew inexplicably thicker, and he began to struggle to push himself through the brambles. There was no telling how much farther he’d have to go until his destination. But that didn’t matter - he’d walk to the end of the world if he had to.

                Finally the thicket fell away to thinner saplings and he arrived in a field, tall grass and wildflowers waving gently in the breeze. There was a sense of heavy oppression in the small clearing, like sound was muted and that the forest itself was holding its breath. It felt like nobody had been there in a long time, no human, machine or vastaya - _no one_. 

The ground had been gradually increasing in elevation, and now the base of the mountain stands regally in front of him. There’s a worn path winding its way up, disappearing behind needled trees and outcroppings of rock.

                It would take around three days at a moderate pace. If he didn’t sleep and kept going through-out the night he could probably make it in two. Maybe in just over a day if he really pushed himself.

It already took two all-nighters to get to this point. Xayah hadn’t waken up since the day he found her in the woods.

                _Miella_ , he lifts her up a bit, adjusting his grip on her. _We’ve made it to the mountain. Hold on a little longer for me, okay_?

A five minute sit. That’s all he needs - a breath to drink and eat and then they could start the last leg of their journey. Keeping Xayah on his lap, he digs through and withdraws their canteen. After taking a few swallows for himself he cradles Xayah, takes the mouth piece and tries to nudge it into her mouth. When it brushes against her dry lips they open slightly, rooting for what he was offering. Carefully he lifts up the water skin and lets a little water flow in.

He tickles her throat, trying to trick her into swallowing. Water leaks out from the side of her lips and runs down her face.

                Rakan frowns. Tries again.

It doesn’t work; this time dribbling from her mouth down her chin.

He curses and slams the canteen as hard against the ground as he could manage, buries his face in his hands.

Somewhere, birds are chirping. The wind blows and the air is filled with the sound of rustling leaves.

                With a shaking fist he wipes the water from her face, and rests his eyes upon her.

Three minutes left of his break.

Xayah is still beautiful.

It’s strange, this feeling. He dropped a hand to stroke her cheek, and found himself humming again. His heart was singing for her, even while bleeding from grief. _But why grief_? She was here with him in the most special of places, the final destination for their kind. He should be overwhelmed with joy.

It made no sense. She was going to be fine.

 

Rakan stands and collects the canteen. He had no time for such thoughts. His break is over.

 

(*)*(*)

 

 

The path is one that thousands of their kind had walked throughout their history. It’s surreal to walk it when he knows that this is one that usually only goes one way. It made him irrationally focus on the scenery, a view he’d be taking in for the last time.

                _Honey, this reminds me of a story_. _I know you can hear me still, so I’m going to tell you a good one_. He says between breaths. The road felt like it would never end, but he wouldn’t dare look back to check. If he wasn’t up as high as he hoped he’d have covered he wasn’t sure if he could take it. So he _didn’t_. Instead he focuses on the story; to pass time and distract him just as much as it could entertain her.

_A very long time ago, there was a man with long golden feathers. He sang and danced and fought like everyone else in his tribe, but despite being well loved and surrounded by family he always felt alone. As he grew, this feeling grew stronger. It became a desperate yearning, but for what he didn’t know_.

                The trees surrounding the path were sparser now, giving way to more rock and shrub instead. A blessing, since the sun was setting and the lack of overhead cover allowed him to see the footpath. He couldn’t risk tripping, not here, not now. He continues:

                _When he came of age he left his village with some friends to go on a trip through-out the continent. They didn’t have any destination in mind, so they drifted to where-ever would take them. At a village near the sea he sees a young woman, white feathers and slender as a willow reeds bathing in a spring a far from the town. When their eyes meet he felt like some missing puzzle piece in heart had been filled. His friends teased him, but when he dashed over to the woman and took her hands he knew by her face that she felt it too… and then she beat him up for intruding on her when she was disrobed. That’s how he knew she was the one for sure._

Rakan smiles. This was his favourite part of the story.

_They got married soon after, and in the years after they found true joy like they’d never known before. She took up his tribe colours, moved back to his village -_ _were blessed with a son!!  Things felt like they couldn’t get any better_. _They were content for over a century_.

                The moon was in the middle of the night sky. Had this much time passed already? A cloud passes over the moon and obfuscates his path with shadow. Rakan stops for a moment and speaks while he waits for the light to return.

_But the feeling of yearning eventually returned to both of them and even the physical contact of the other did nothing to soothe it. They were shocked! It grew each passing year until it was unbearable._

_However, there was a solution. It was said that couples that travel to the summit of the sacred mountain would have their souls united into one before leaving this plane of existence. Both the man and woman could no longer bear life feeling like this - and came to the conclusion that they would have to go_.

                Pale moonlight falls back upon him. He continues his long strides.

_They said goodbye to their families, the villagers, and to their son. They didn’t want to leave him, but there was no other way. He accepts their goodbyes, but that night the son snuck out to chase after them. He wished to see the mountain for himself and convince his parents to come home._

_It was a long journey for the son, and a desolate one to take alone. Still, he continued with his love for his parents propelling him._

_When he reaches the top he sees them. He goes to call out, but they look so happy, happier than he’d seen them in decades. So he stops. The son can’t bring himself to ruin that. He couldn’t be selfish_.

_The parents disappear in front of his eyes, and the son runs to the clearing in a panic. All trace of them had gone, no bodies or even a footprint. He looks a little longer, but the world starts to feel like its spinning and he leaves from fear of what could happen_.

 

Rakan cuts off as his legs shake and he stumbles. His arms lock before catching himself with quick footwork; he takes a long breath and tries to get his pulse to slow down _. She was okay_ \- he told himself - _he hadn’t dropped her_. Looking up to the sky: a tiny sliver of sun was starting to peek out from the east end of the world. Saying his words slowly and clearly for her, he resumes.

                _The son sleeps near the summit, and when he awakens he feels like he can hear the song of life clearer than ever before, and along with it there’s a duet that he knows in his heart is his parents. So he hadn’t really lost them. If he was lucky he’d meet them again someday, just in another form. With that knowledge, he’s not sad anymore._

_When he returns to his village worried people crowd him, but all he can think to say is; ‘I wasn’t scared.’ Deep down he knew he would want to return some day and do this with his own soulmate_.

Rakan swallows.

                _Time passes. The son grew up and found a wife of his own - found joy of his own. But she got sick and it progressed far too fast. When she can no longer walk so he carries her in his arms to the summit on the same path his parents took so long ago. As he takes her into the meadow life is breathed back into her body and they share one last kiss before their souls meet and they pass on together_. _But the son wasn’t scared - because he knew they’d be together again in another life._

He squeezes her lightly.

_Did you like it? That’s one I know I haven’t told you before_.

He takes a minute then, sitting on a flat rock in front of one of the caves formed as one of the checkpoints to shelter weary travellers. Takes out the canteen, watches the sun rise the rest of the way.

The air is thinner here, noticeably so, and he needs to take a little longer to catch his breath. There was still a while left to go and it would only get worse from here on out. If he was taking his time as this path was meant to be taken he’d likely have acclimatised better and not feel so lightheaded.

Or perhaps that was from the lack of sleep? Never-the -less, it didn’t matter.

                Xayah’s chest still rises and falls, though she felt a little cooler to the touch than usual. Rakan re-tucks the blanket around her to make it snugger, kisses her forehead and then the top of her head through her thin hair.

_Don’t worry baby. You’re too strong to give up now, we’ll be there soon. Okay Sweetheart? Just stay with  me._

If he holds her tight and closes his eyes he can feel the weak vibrating of her soul, thrumming in response to his own. Rakan pushes, trying to coax it into stirring , into waking her physical form. If he could get her to look at him again - maybe even talk to him, say his name - he’d be the happiest man alive. But she doesn’t, and that’s expected, yet he can’t control the rush of sadness that wracks him.

It’d be okay. He takes a breath and starts another story.

 

(*)*

 

                Somewhere around three-quartres of the way up he collapses, the songs of the world convening here to form a structured cacophony and making his head pound. If he tries hard enough, he can ignore it, push it away to the back of his mind. If he really concentrates he can pick out Xayah’s soft violin, single notes drifting from one to the other, practically drowned out by the other songs.

                It should have been him. He should have gotten hurt instead of her. If he could change it, if he could swap places with her, he’d do it without question. Then the world fades out, if only for a moment and Rakan remembers the shadow leaping towards her with knife in hand, her grunting in pain and falling down, down, _down_ -

 

He comes to with a start, lying on the cold dirt path with Xayah still under him, blank face entirely unconcerned with her drop.

Scrambling, he rolls off of her and picks her back up, dusting the dirt off her with frantic hands, shaking in fear.

                _Xayah! I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry - I don’t know what came over me!  Are you okay_?

She doesn’t move, not even a twitch, but breath still leaves her mouth in small puffs. There aren’t any cuts to her head. Reassured, he gathers her back up and resumes his trudge back up the path.

They’re getting closer. He can feel it, he can hear it, he can practically _taste_ it. The farther up he walks the more the mountain springs to life, verdant vegetation covering every available space, dotted with violet crocus and white cyclamen.  If they’d the time he’d lean down and pick a bunch, but there’d be no point to do so without someone to give them to.  He takes a single flower and tucks it behind her ear, the white bloom a foil to her dark hair. It smells sweet against her skin.

 

                The path stretches on and on, but it increases its steepness dramatically. He passes another cave properly set up to be comfortable to visitors, and a river with crystal clear waters that fed into a small pond. More things they wouldn’t get the chance to partake in. Out of respect he dips his feet in the river to wash them then returns to the trail.

It wouldn’t be too much longer. The hope lights a fire in him even as the world’s song grew louder and his ears start to ring.

                Despite the midday sun beating down on them it was slightly cool, a chill accompanying any small breeze that comes their way. Xayah starts to shiver in his arms, lightly first but then transitioning to full quakes, starting for four seconds straight then stopping for one, then repeating without stop.

_Are you cold my love_? Worry creeps into his voice as the vibrations travels up his arms. How much worse was it going to get? Not much, surely. They were almost at the top. He tucks the woven blanket in and wraps it closer around her body. Her cheeks are cool and clammy under his lips, so he takes the only other blanket from their pack (thinner though it was) and drapes it around her head and neck like a hood to hide it from the biting wind.

Lastly Rakan positions his feathered cloak it so it drapes over her as well as the rest of his front to help further protect her frail form from the cold. She’s practically hidden under it.

He must move. The faster he gets to the top, the sooner she’ll be out of the cold.

For the next few hours his strides get faster, picking up the pace though his feet ache and his lungs start to burn as the air gets thinner. Still he pushes towards the top, mind focusing on _her, her eyes_ and _her soul_ and _her song_.  They would leave together. She had told him she wanted to be with him forever - he wouldn’t let her leave this world alone.

The summit is in sight - Rakan can see the path ending just ahead of him cast in golden light from the setting sun. The world is thunderous in his ears; he can hear the roaring of a thousand songs playing as a symphony in his mind, drums pulsing unevenly like thunder, woodwind flutes screaming and then amongst it all the sudden, jarring snapping of  a violin’s strings; its final echoing twang quickly being covered up by unearthly vocals with no words.

                _We’re almost there, just a few more seconds my love_ -

                Rakan jumps the last final steps.

 

The abrasive music cuts off abruptly into dead silence as soon as his feet touch the sacred ground.

 

They’ve made it.

Rakan laughs out loud, strained and wheezing as joyful tears run down his face. He clutches Xayah and the blankets close to him and spins, kicking up tiny grey rocks as he does so.

The plateau where he’s standing is mostly flat, but up ahead he can see the split in the mountain top, the wide crevice that was rumoured to have formed when a god struck it with his fist. Passing through lead to a meadow located outside physical constraints, he remembered, pale grey fog obscuring the far edges of sight so it appeared to reach into infinity.

                _Xayah, Sweetie we did it! We’re here_!

It’s warmer here somehow, like an early spring day. His cloak he tosses back to rest again behind his shoulders. Xayah would want to see this too. He nuzzles his face against her blanket to dry his tears, and starts loosening the extra blankets tucked around her face while he turns his gaze immediately to the sky.

The fleeing sun painted the sky in brilliant shades of gold, leading to pink and purple that bled into a dark blue speckled with early stars. Parts of the valley he can see below, tiny lights from villages and smaller mountains the only other landmarks he can recognise with the encroaching dusk.

_Look, the sky is painted in our colours. We’re guests of honour here_! He teases, giving her a light squeeze to rouse her. _It’s pretty, but I still think you’re more beautiful_. _Can you see it? Here, let me help_ …

                Rakan pulls down the rest of the blankets away from her head, exposing Xayah’s face to the sun. 

_Sweetie, wake up_. He gives her another squeeze and waits expectantly for any kind of response. When she doesn’t, he tries again.

_Honey we made it. You know you wanna see this_. Rakan cups her cheek and strokes it lovingly. _Don’t tease me like this. Come on Miella…You’ve slept enough. Can you hear me_?

He rubs the pad of his thumb over her cool cheek. Her lips are slightly blue, jaw relaxed and mouth slightly parted, but he couldn’t hear her rattling breaths, something he had been accustomed to for the past few days. Colour drains out of his face, neck running hot while his spine felt like ice water was being poured over it. Slow and deliberate realisation trickled down from head to toe, freezing him inside and out.

He swallows nervously.

_Xayah?_

                The world was quiet around him; just a peaceful lull broken by the occasional stirring of wind, and with the joy of his accomplishment long worn off the oddness of it began to grate on him. Perhaps this part of the mountain blocked out such things? The ticking in the back of his mind has stopped too, and unease fills him as his heart beats faster.

 

_Cold_. The silence is ice to his soul.

There’s something missing, something he’s sure was part of him - a moment ago, a breath ago, a _heartbeat ago_ \- that isn’t there now. His ears flick a little at the crawling sensation, and holds the bundle closer to his chest. The blanket is warm in the setting sun.

For some reason, he doesn’t want to look back down.

Through the pounding of his heart, he feels light scratching like fingernails drawing across the skin of his arms, of his neck and flank. He dismisses the churning of his mind and gut and shakes his head. It was just stress of the last two weeks catching up with him and making him anxious. They had made it, Xayah was going to be reborn. They would be reborn _together_.

Rakan moves his fingers from her cheek to her neck and holds it there. One second passes. Two seconds, _five_ , each moment he waited dragged longer and longer. _Nothing_. No flutter, no gentle pulse reassuringly steady against his digits. He tears the blanket back in the front and places his palm flat to her mottled chest and waits, praying to their ancestors that he was wrong.

                It’s still; no longer expanding and contracting with proof of life. For a second he shakes his head and freezes, staring in horror.

                _No, Xayah, no no no- no_!  He drops to his knees, laying her flat on the mountain rock and starts lightly shaking her. His fingers are digging into the skin of her arms as his breath comes quicker and shorter, vision narrowing to just him and her. His eyes start to burn and her form blurs amidst his unshed tears.

The feeling that takes his chest is crushing, closing off his throat until it was hard to breathe. He kneels over slow, slumping over her limp form, focusing his inner magic reserves to coax into her. Like for the past week it was rejected, hitting a wall the moment he tries to seep it to her core. He hadn’t noticed, hadn’t held her proper or comforted her, _hadn’t sang her home_. They were a _mated pair_ , and he hadn’t _noticed_ her passing. The choking feeling turned to nausea as the world spun and he grips her harder to keep him grounded. Soul pain runs through him in a wave, and he shudders.

He knew her song as well as his own, and he had failed her. Warm tears drip off his face and splatter onto her cheek one after another, faster and faster, running to collect in her apex, the crease of her nose, the dip of her mouth.  Alarmed, he brushes them off quickly with a soft thumb, rubbing his own eyes off with his arm quickly after. _When had he started crying_?

                Once again his eyes are drawn to the crevice, and the unease changes to determination. How long since she had passed? It couldn’t have been long - her core was still warm, after all. Her soul was still there, it _had_ to be. They’d still be able to do this. He runs a hand over her cheek and whispers reassurances.

                _Don’t worry Miella… I know you’re still here,_ he whispers, _we’re going to make it. Just stay around me, just for a little longer_.

No time to waste.

                Each step he takes makes him bolder, more sure of himself. The split stone towers high above him, speckled with patterns and veins of minerals of every colour. It has a sheen - reflecting late sunlight down through the crack to chase away the shadows. He shoulder brushes up against it and it’s oddly smooth against his skin, the dirt path under his feet soft like worn sand.

 

Then a voice speaks up behind him, lilting and serene as only those ascended from mortal bindings can be.

                _That’s not going to work_.

Rakan freezes in place, panicking instincts telling him to do everything from try to hide Xayah from view to getting ready to fight. He didn’t recognise the soft, feminine voice. He hadn’t heard her approach either. A figment of his imagination, or perhaps an aspect of this mountain?

There was the possibility of making a break for the clearing - he wasn’t letting anyone or anything, living _or_ ethereal stop him now.

The mystery woman behind him seems to read his mind. She speaks like a song, lyrical and drifting. It was oddly calming in a way, but that in itself made his skin crawl, made him want to run. Was it some effect she was forcing onto him? He knew well enough the ability of a charm.

_Her soul has already departed_. She says softly, continuing to speak despite his lack of response. _Taking her will solve nothing_.

                Now he turns sharply, whipping around to face this stranger, face turned up in fury. What would she know?? How _dare_ she say such things?!

The figure standing a few metres behind him is humanoid: fur white as cotton, black paws like she’d been stepping in soot and long ears that draped past the shoulders. Yet she was on two legs and wore a mask black as pitch; a white crescent marked its forehead. Floating behind her is what he can only describe as a living shadow, a billowing smoke like _thing_ that bore the hungry glowing maw of a wolf. It wore a half-mask too, white with a purple crescent flipped to face the opposite side.

                He knew this creature. From stories of those who ran from death, or for those who experienced close calls, the archer and the wolf had always been characters in their tales.

                _Shut up_ -! Rakan snaps, and the urge to strike this unfeeling creature rises in him along with disquiet. What would she know about Xayah? About what they’ve _done_? He wasn’t afraid of this apparition, regardless of what he had heard. He knew his love better than anyone, he would know if she had _left_ him. He takes a step backwards, closer to the meadow and farther from these apathetic monsters. They don’t move to follow them.

Everything’s moving way too fast.

The lamb speaks again but he can’t hear them. Words and voices of the arbiters before him are simple buzzing to his ears. Insignificant. _Inconsequential_.

He doesn’t want to look down at Xayah. Back at the entrance to the crevice, two pairs of masked eyes glow with a blue-white light.  

                They’re watching to see what he chooses to do.

               

With a final scowl, Rakan turns his back to them and continues forward, head feeling full of cotton wool, cradling the weight in his arms long after his muscles started to burn. They were wrong.  It would only be a few steps more, and he and Xayah would be reunited again.

The exit was right in front of him and suddenly, the arbiters of death ceased to matter to him. Rakan steps through to the other side.

 

 

                _I Crave the Hunt! -_ the wolf growls and lunges into the crevice, tempted by retreating prey.  _The bird creature has vanished from sight_. _We’re letting him go??_

The white one shakes her head and puts up a hand to stop her spectral companion.

                _Hush. It has already been done_. _There is nothing for us here_.

A breath of wind lightly stirs the mountain top, and they too disappear.

 

__+__+__+

 

Magic danced in the air like motes of dust, air-light manifestations of the mountain’s magic glinting rainbow in the setting sunlight. It used to be their favourite part after restoring an area - standing together and watching the colours - but it seemed this area did this perpetually. Mist hung in the periphery of the clearing, seeming close but if he took steps towards it, it never seemed to get any closer.

                He takes careful steps towards the flower patch, long grass bending under his clawed feet. This was what he had only heard rumours about; only would get to truly experience once. The magic in the earth here was strong - he could hear it practically _singing_ to him. It wrapped around him like a warm blanket, promising peace from his grief, from the weariness of life. 

The tales that brought him here however were only conjecture - the people that truly went here had no way of coming back to tell their account. He had no way of knowing whether they’d prove true, besides what he’d seen centuries ago with his own parents.

_He had nothing to lose._

                Rakan walks till he gets to the middle of a scattering of wildflowers then sits, delicately lowering Xayah onto the grass as gently as one’d handle an egg, using his arm to support Xayah’s back until he’s sitting as well and can arrange her properly on his lap. _Shhhh_ he hums, even though it wasn’t for anyone’s benefit but his own. His hands delicately tuck the blanket in a bit more about her body, trying to keep her warm despite it no longer providing any real use.

                He holds her sideways on his lap, runs a hand through her thinned hair. Rakan blinks rapidly a few times and collects himself. There was no point to being sad - this was a place of joy, of rebirth and reminiscence. Rakan touches her cheek, pale, thin face with plum markings still in place, relishing in his softness before brushing his lips over hers, remembering their warmth and soft pouts, her scowls and playful smiles whenever he said something silly.

Then he presses a kiss to her face and forehead before pulling her against his chest and tucking her head against his shoulder so he could rest his cheek against hers.

                _Can you feel it sweetie? We’re here, we made it. We won’t have to wait too long until we’re reunited_. He can feel it already, some force gently pulling at his consciousness, coaxing him to relax and just _let go_. Rakan clings to her, and with each breath he takes it gets easier to pretend that she’s breathing along with him, calmly awaiting their passing. She was always much more quiet than him. This was typical of her.

_I always wanted us to come here, eventually. I thought we’d have more time - but I don’t mind! I’m just happy you’re here with me_. _I love you… I'll see you soon._

She doesn’t reply - _of course she doesn’t_ \- but for a second he has to squeeze his eyes shut, take a slow breath through his nose, releasing it even slower through his mouth.

_I’m okay love, don’t worry_. He reassures her, and hugs her like he could physically take her into her body.

Any second now she’d shift and wake up. Any second now he’d feel her soul stirring free to meet him. Rakan waits.

\- And _Waits_.

Time is strange here. It could be one minute or he could be waiting ten seconds. Rakan isn’t sure.

But there’s no change from Xayah. Giving her a nuzzle and another kiss he says; _come on my love. Wake up and join me. I miss you_.

                He digs a hand under her blanket and finds her hand, intertwining their fingers. They’re starting to stiffen, curling in to touch her palm. He squeezes it anyway.

_Come on…Come on_! His mind echoes the sentiment, anxiety rising with each second that passes. Calling her name doesn’t rouse her, nuzzling or squeezing her doesn’t allow him to sense her soul. He rocks slightly back and forth with her in his arms, humming an old love song from her tribe that she once taught him. If he stops it sounds too quiet, too lonely, so he keeps it up until it gets too hard to do so, dry throat losing the ability to make sound.

                It was starting; slow and deliberate he could feel everything numbing, every sense and every thought slipping away slow like sand through an hourglass, falling to oblivion. It doesn’t alarm him as much as he thought it would.

The edges of the clearing got harder and harder to see, misty periphery getting closer each time he looks. So he stops looking and focuses instead on the weight of his lover in his arms. Her scent was lost to him now but he’s sure if he tries hard he can remember it… so he tries, and all that he draws is a blank.

                Puzzled, he tries instead to recall her voice, teasing and soft, warm with affection for him and he can picture it, her smiling up at him and giving him one final kiss before sending him off to initiate a fight.

_I love you Sweetheart. Come back safe for me, please?_

He would. He _always_ did. If he failed to come back she’d be sad, and he couldn’t have her heartbroken.

                And he’d feel it; her beautiful golden eyes watching him leave, burning into his back with some unknown sadness, her secret fear of being alone again.

He’d never let that happen, and after this neither of them would ever have to be.

 

                His body was beginning to feel like a separate entity from himself. Xayah was still on his lap but he could hardly feel her, couldn’t sense her weight or her touch. It all blurred into what was him and _not-him_ , but even all of that was starting to feel separate as his thoughts got farther and farther apart, dragging like thick molasses. Xayah drops from his lap when Rakan slumps over, no longer able to hold up his own body let alone support another. She limply slips off of him onto the grass, unmoving. A burning pain hits him as he watches, the urge to hold her going unfulfilled. He makes a desperate noise and tries to grab her - but his body refuses to cooperate, dead weight no longer spurred by his wishes.

Now he was certain his eyes were weakening as closer objects got blurrier and his peripheral vision begins to tunnel. The pulling sensation was stronger, growing even as he tried to resist it, and its soft comfort only felt like lies to him now.

Why wasn’t she here yet?

The seed of fear planted before he had even climbed the mountain grew to fruition and bore rotten fruit.

                _No no no,_ _Xayah… Xayah_ … - !

She wasn’t here.  She was _never_ here; had passed long ago before he even reached the summit and he’d _left_ her there. When had it happened? He could recall holding her when she was shivering, but the closer they had gotten to the top the more distracted he had gotten from the world’s music. Rakan couldn’t remember, couldn’t remember her last breath and it makes him feel twisted up tight like a piece of twine. Xayah’s soul was stranded now, wandering lost amongst the mortal world with no-one to give her a proper burial. He didn’t sing her soul home and now she’d be eternity without rest, never meeting again with her family; never meeting again with _him_.

_Miella, miella please wake up_ \- his mind begs her, but he’s begging a corpse that he can hardly see, colour running out of the world as if being sapped by a sponge.

What had he _done?_

Despair runs through him with no outlet.

He thinks of golden eyes, crinkling as she laughed, shiny as she cried for their people and for her lost family, glassy as she lay bleeding on the ground from the one corrupted dagger he couldn’t block.

This was his fault.  She was lost forever now, to him and to the world. There was no hope of reincarnation for a lost soul.

                Anguish eats at whatever was left at him, ripping his fading spirit to shreds.

Her blurry shape becomes indistinguishable as his vision fades to black, a force he could no longer ignore wrenching him free from physical form and sinking him down into a deep, dark pool. For the last time, he wishes he had died with her in that clearing.

 

(-)              (-)              (-)

 

It was warm _._

_Beckoning_.

 

Life starts and ends here, at the cycle of all things. He can hear the base song of the world, some soft piano with a million parts overlapping and repeating all in harmony.

He’ll flow there and join them, eventually. _Soon_.

Something was wrong. He felt forlorn.

                A ghost of a sound runs through him and it prods his memories until they flake off and disperse. It’s discordant against the piano. _A violin_? Or rather, his memory of one. If there was an upwards direction here, he guides his consciousness there.

 Why does he care? There’s nothing of interest there anymore.

No.

It was… what was he forgetting?

                _\- Gold. Not like his feathers but better, molten warm and soft for him alone-_

Nothing left for him -

                _\- the sound of falling water and a soft, shy body_ -

The piano is louder now. Still gentle, coaxing what’s left of him to rest. He sinks further with a voiceless cry. Not yet. Not until he remembers what he was missing. He couldn’t leave without it.

                 - _Just… think of me sometimes_ … _and I’ll be happy_ -

 

 

A final desperate spark, and a wisp of golden essence ceases to be.

  



	2. An Ideal Outcome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some things work out after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently people wanted a happy end? So I wrote this. Sorry it took so long haha, I don't even know if the people who asked for it will even see it? But still. This is for you guys.
> 
> This is the tasty alternate end to which we can cry tears of something other than sadness. Right? Right.  
> I did my best. I hope you all like it.
> 
> Also!!! If anyone's curious as to the music I listened to on repeat while writing the entirety of this fic: The rent soundtrack, (particularly What You Own, Without You, Goodbye Love, No day but today) Various K-pop, The Dear Hunter (everything they got, but mostly The Fire remains, Waves, Black Sandy Beaches)

\------  


She’d messed up. 

Xayah knew it the second she stepped a little too far to the right. Her flank was left open, Rakan couldn’t cover her like this – 

Then there was a sensation like hot ice running through her body, starting its main path from her gut and following all the way down a nerve to her tail bone. She’s normally used to this; has gotten all sorts of wounds throughout her adult life, poisons and neurotoxins and corrupt magic of all kinds and able to grit her teeth and fight through it, but this is something she hadn’t felt before. 

Despite herself she falls, and when she struggles to stand a bolt of the same pain surges through her abdomen and her spine seizes, sending her back down into the mud. She chokes, feeling her eyes water at the sudden sensation. Rakan finishes off the last two men with a strong kick; Xayah can hear the crack of their neck snapping from where she lay. 

After the battle is over Rakan approaches her to help her to her feet. Standing hurts, but together they manage it. He picks her up and she feels small, being cradled against his larger form. 

The entire way back to their camp she stares up at his face, focused on the momentous expression there. 

Her love. Her heartlight. The throbbing in her gut was easy to ignore for a few minutes, staring up at him. 

Somehow, deep down she felt unease. 

  
(*)*(*)*(*) 

  


Rakan’s upset. 

She can feel him with her mind, a sensing of anxiety in his soul transferring to her own. Him being forced to wait outside was not helping matters. 

The doctors demanded it. _He was too agitated_ they said. _He’d just get in the way_. 

They were right, but it didn’t make her feel any better. 

_How does it look_ ? She asks, arching her neck to watch them work. It looked like any old wound – maybe the blood was a little darker, but the cut was clean and the pain wasn’t so bad now that she was lying down. It still throbbed with a curious type of flame. 

_It’s resisting attempts to heal by magic, so we’ll have to do it conventionally._ The doctor says to her, straight forward, no bullshit _. This is strange, but not impossible. Just rest, and you’ll be fine_ . 

Relief floods her. She’d be fighting fit again before she knew it. Rakan outside must feel it, because she hears his pacing stop briefly, but then it starts up again just as fast. 

Once the doctors finished wrapping the bandages around her Rakan’s let back inside in a fluster, settling back in to hug into her side. 

Everything was going to be alright. 

  
(*)*(*)* 

  


Something’s off about this wound. It ebbed with a kind of burning pulse that wouldn’t be soothed by anything the doctors brought her. Every day – no, every hour – it burned deeper and spread farther through her core. Starting at her belly button but tunnelling up slowly like a parasitic worm, deeper and deeper to coil intimately near her vitals. The doctors assured her they could see nothing of the sort. ( _Just a slashing stab wound, nothing nearly as spectacular as that_ ,) but she had a hard time believing it. 

Rakan had been kicked out again. The doctors let him stay and observe so long as he didn’t get agitated with them, but that had lasted until she had hissed with pain when they removed her old dressing, so basically all of two minutes. 

She watches him get shoved outside by the burly Shimon doctor with only a little exasperation, but once the fabric is shut between them she’s caught by the strangest sensation. 

Loneliness. 

_Weird._ She knows he’s standing right outside their tent – probably pacing like always – but she can’t feel him anymore. Even when they were fairly far apart she could sense their soul link, a light tingling that felt the same reassurance-wise as being able to lay eyes on him herself. Losing it was like losing a useful spare appendage, an extra arm she never knew she had suddenly being taken away. 

_Honey_ ? She calls out, uncertain. 

He rips the tent flap open and slips back in, dodging around the doctor’s assistant who tries to grab him and plopping down next to her head, far from the supplies or in the way of the other’s work. Once he’s sitting by her head and holding her hand the feeling flees, and like a child who wandered too far in the marketplace the feeling of his spirit sheepishly returns to her, shooing away the loneliness and ushering a calmness of spirit. 

Strange. 

The main doctor rolls his eyes but allows Rakan’s – now quiet – presence, so that was a win in her book. She watches him observe the healers at work, he’s hyper-focusing like this might be the most important thing he’d ever see. 

Xayah closes her eyes. Rakan could watch enough for the both of them. 

  
(*)*(*) 

  


Time passes. 

Rakan keeps trying. Rakan keeps _believing_. 

She wishes he wouldn’t. 

  
(*)* 

  


Today she feels _bad_. 

Everyday now is a bad day, but today is the worst in what has been a slow climb to her end. Upon waking she feels full of heavy sand, moving her head takes far, far too much effort. It’d be easier to fight a hundred soldiers, or squat-press ten men than to put forth the energy to lift her hand. 

But Rakan’s here, so she has to try. Eventually he starts to fidget in a way that shows he’s awake and Xayah braces for the inevitable question. 

_Marry me honey_ . 

She keeps her eyes shut. 

_I can’t_ . She whispers and prays he doesn’t push the issue farther. 

He must have just woken up, sleep making his voice gruff. This is something he asks every day, without fail to her sickly, living corpse. Everyday it gets harder to say no. 

She can’t. She can’t say yes to him. 

Why do it? For what? To hurt him more, to cut his wound deeper? Rakan may not accept it but she’s known the truth of her expiry for a long time. This would make him suffer more. 

Xayah’s happy, happy with him just remembering her. He needs to move on, to sing her song to inspire others and eventually find another to make his heart burn again. A few days from now, he’ll give her back to the earth, send her spirit to their ancestors. 

Then he’d roam, roam like he did before her probably. Maybe get back into performing, maybe meet up with their allies. She wouldn’t be surprised if he ditched out for awhile, but she can’t blame him for it. A tiny hope burns in her; maybe she’d get to see him sometimes. A spirit, catching glimpses from afar. If he lived long enough, perhaps her reincarnated self could meet him again. 

Was that even a possibility now? 

For a long time she feared it, and she’s too weak to block out the thoughts now. 

It disgusts her, that monsters poison eating away at her soul just as it ate away at her body. It’s too damaged now, she thinks, too ruined to hope to rejoin the cycle of life. She’ll be lost here, a final death. No other reason as to why she stopped sensing the warm comfort of her lover’s soul over a week ago, losing ability to perceive him spiritually day-by-day in an insidious crawl, and it was then she knew that eventually his physical touch would be lost to her too. 

Or perhaps it’s the loss of her magic that has caused her lack of ability, this essential thing, proof of her ancestry as vital as lifeblood sapped dry like a dead tree. Either way, it didn’t look good for her. 

That’s what made it so tempting. If their spirits could never join again, then maybe this simple thing, this marriage gave her one last link to Rakan, one last thing to connect their hearts during a time where she feels so alone. 

But what might minimally soothe her would only hurt him more in the long run. 

So she can’t. 

Tears start running down her face, escaping her closed eyelids to sink into her pillow. He shifts, alarmed at her sudden change. 

_Honey, don’t cry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. If it makes you so sad I won’t ask again, I promise_ . 

He holds her then, continuing with his reassurances till her tears stop. 

Though she feels more hollow than she did before, she knows it’s for the best. 

  
(*) 

  


Rakan’s asleep. 

_I miss you already_ . 

She whispers it through a burdened, dry mouth while looking at Rakan’s sleeping face. It feels like one of the last things she’d say, so she tries to strengthen her throat with a weak swallow and repeat it clearer for him. 

It’s still just as quiet, not even close to loud enough to stir him from his sleep. 

There are no words to express how much she’d miss him, how much she still loves him, and she can’t convey through her soul to his either. A dancing, golden flame she’ll never feel again. 

Xayah can cry now, with this tiny reprieve from Rakan’s focused gaze. It’s weak, it’s undignified but she can give herself this, she can mourn for her own passing and the loss of her love. 

_Rakan will remember her, Rakan will be okay, Rakan will love again_ . This repeats in her mind as she waits for her body to return to sleep. She can be happy, she can be strong for him. 

It’s the least she can do for her soulmate. 

  
(*)*(*)*(*) 

(*)*(*)* 

(*)*(*) 

(*)* 

(*) 

* 

  
The clearing is how he remembers it. 

It was like a bubble of infinity, misty periphery preventing him from seeing if there was ever an end. The grass is soft under his feet and green as a painting, coloured like one would imagine the ideal grass would look like. It’s almost… greener, than what could be considered real, and feels softer than any grass has any right to be. When he blinks, the grass prickles his feet, longer strands tickle his shins. Tiny white flowers are dotted about the clearing, stirring in the occasional breeze. 

Xayah seems heavier somehow, like their purpose here transferred from metaphorical weight into reality. He clutches her close as he wanders, searching for a proper place to sit. When he can no longer see the crevasse he lowers them both down, breaths shaky. Her head lolls to the side, cushioned by the grass and his gut clenches, wringing his insides into knots until he can taste his own bile in his throat. Her legs are still able to be straightened - her body not yet too stiff to be stuck in the bridal carry he had been carrying her in for the past few days - so he rolls her gently onto her side, facing him. 

_Gods, he misses her_ . Rakan strokes her cheek with a thumb, leans over to kiss her forehead then adjusts the blanket protecting her dignity. Looking at her for too long makes the air in his lungs freeze, so he tucks her in against his front and shakily breathes with his forehead pressed to her shoulder. Her core is still warm, a brick of a heat sink but the distal parts of her body were still rapidly cooling, heat defusing to the air around them. 

She must be cold. He didn’t want her to be cold. Rakan can feel his heart starting to race, his breaths rising to give chase so fast he can hardly get any air. Xayah couldn’t be left like this. She just _couldn’t_. He drapes his left wing over them both and holds her tight to himself until his own shaking stops. 

_Miella… is that better? Are you comfortable? If you’re not, you can tell me_ . _I don’t mind_. 

The ground is softened greatly by the thick mounds of grass; it’s almost like laying atop a real bed. Comfier than some real beds they’ve laid in, even. Xayah must have no complaints - she stays silent. 

Rakan nods and waits; each second feeling acutely like ten. He’s tired, but whether it’s from this place or from his first time lying down in days he isn’t sure. 

Either way, he can’t take any chances. 

_I love you_ . He says it aloud, and his sole voice in the clearing somehow makes him feel even more lonesome. He swallows to wet his dry mouth. 

_You can wake up my love, I’m here with you. Don’t be scared… I’m ready whenever you are! I’ll always wait for you honey, you know that_ . 

Tending to get lost was his deal, due to absent mindedness and a curious nature. But no matter what Xayah always managed to find him, whether he was off-route in the middle of the woods or distracted by some random house. 

Maybe this time he’d have to go look for her. 

She was probably lonely without him. She never liked to admit it, but after even only a few hours apart their reunions would be extra-sweet; her hugs extra hard, her kisses a few seconds longer. Was she alone somewhere now, in the dark, seeking him? Missing him? The thought makes something inside him bristle with discomfort, intensifying the soul-deep ache for a few long seconds. 

Still. By now, wasn’t it too long? She should have woken up by now, right? 

_Where was she_ ? 

The sudden fear paralyses him for a moment, but he brushes it aside. He believed in his love. She’d return to him. She had to. 

It was so _quiet_. 

Maybe she didn’t want to see him again? This was his fault. Days ago she had been right; he didn’t protect her, he failed her as a partner, as a man \- as a soul mate. He wouldn’t blame her for feeling this way. 

By now he was finding it hard to move; his limbs feeling weighed down by some heavy leaden blanket. Xayah was still a comforting form against his body, anchoring both his awareness and his conviction. But he was so _tired…_ if he closes his eyes and concentrates hard he can see her smile, can hear her voice... so sweet, so sweet his love… 

For a few seconds his eyelids droop, only to startle back open. 

If he sleeps, this would be the last time he sees her. This, he knows for certain. Some deep down part of his instinct told him it was so. 

His fingers clenched harder around her at the thought. He had to wait for her. If he leaves before she wakes up, this would all be for nothing. 

They lie in the silence. Rakan breathes around her. The world closes in on him, the clouds move, the stars shift. His legs were numb minutes ago but the sensation is travelling upwards in slow waves like a tide encroaching on a beach and he can no longer feel his torso, his mind soon to be just a helpless passenger. Transfixed, he turns his head slightly and stares at the moon above him with weakening eyes. It was so beautiful, especially now. Full and shining with such serene light, more quiet and dignified than the sun but no less important. 

With what little strength he had left in his hands he roots for Xayah’s hand and interlaces their fingers. They’re cold. 

He’s not surprised. 

_Did I ever tell you the story about the sun and moon spirits_ ? He asks out loud, voice so weak now he knew it could hardly be heard _._

_It’s one of my favourites_ . 

The moon’s light stayed constant, though for a second it blurred and he had to blink rapidly to clear it. Water rolls down his cheek to soak into the grass. 

_Two celestial beings were born at the beginning of time. The god of the sun, and the goddess of the moon. The moon was intelligent, cold and breathtaking, but lonely. The sun was well-loved and well-known, yet wild and carefree_ . 

_They meet by chance during an eclipse, and after their first, spontaneous dance the sun god knows his life has found new meaning. He follows her to the end of the universe to ask for her hand_ . _She’d decline each time yet their dance continues for millennia. He would wait forever for her, and she knew that too_ . 

His words cut off as he makes a stifled gasp. Rakan has to ignore the lump in his throat and start and stop the sentence several times as it became harder to control his tongue. 

_One day she disappears. The sun god never got to say goodbye to her properly so he wanders every inch of the galaxy searching for her, not wanting to admit her soul is lost to him. He searches and searches but they never meet again_ . 

Rakan chokes. 

_I – I’m sorry, that one wasn’t very happy. Give me a minute Miella; I’ll tell a different one…_

But try as he might, after taking a few seconds to recentre himself he can’t speak anymore. His throat muscles aren’t obeying him, and even if he had the force to swallow it was like he’d been drinking salt water for the past three days. In this sudden silence the moonlight is his only comfort, shining back steadily upon him. Breath leaves him in a slow stream, going until he has no more left. 

This was it. Soon he would cease to be. 

Abruptly, something warm appears at the edge of his vision. He blinks languidly as the silver glow reaches his forehead, eventually drifting past his eyes to hover near his hand. With herculean effort he abandons Xayah’s hand and twists his own up to cradle the warm wisp in his palms. It hovers there, just barely brushing his skin with its non-presence. 

It strikes him as familiar, strangely enough, this tiny rounded concentration of essence. It’s radiant like a mini-sun, a tiny star – yet still delicate. Hardly more formed than the wind, yet the heat that came off of it was a solid, steady thing. Calming. 

His finger brushes too close and the essence disperses while the clearing around him darkens abruptly and Rakan’s left reeling in the emotion it zapped through him. An entire half-century’s worth of a feeling condensed and given without context; just the base experience of this one soul, desperate to convey a message. 

It feels like _love_ as his eyes well up with tears, and though he wants to sob for some reason Rakan finds himself smiling. 

Xayah… she’s with him. For sure, she knows where they are. 

The realization leaves him feeble and his eyes flutter shut against his will - his sudden exhaustion too much to resist now that he has reassurance \- and all he can sense is the calming heat spreading over his body from head to toe. It’s a familiarity that he’s missed, the yearning of his soul for its mate being soothed by the balm of realisation that they would meet again. Xayah is with him. He knows it this time. If she’s here, he’s not afraid. She’d be there waiting for him on the other side. 

Right? 

\- 

-_ 

-_- 

-_-_ 

-_-_- 

-_-_ 

-_- 

-_ 

\- 

  


There’s a stretching sensation he notices even in this brief sleep- not painful -but pulling tighter and tighter until it snaps; and with a final gasp Rakan sits up, chest heaving, heart hammering, soul thrumming as if an electric current was passing through him. His vision is no longer blurry and darkening, but rather the fog of the summit clearing has lessened, showing the sky and edges full of stars sunk into an endless, deep blue. 

Despite this, he can no longer see the crevasse they entered from. Rakan frowns reflexively, but isn’t sure why this would bother him. 

He stands, stares a moment into that infinite abyss, then his gaze glances down. He freezes. 

It’s him; still lying on his side, wing tossed over Xayah with a face as peaceful as though he was just asleep. He’s somehow currently standing inside himself, feet phasing through his own torso - a false form without its former shell. 

He’s tempted to crouch and wave his hand through his body a few times, but a sound from behind stops him. 

_Finally. What took you so long?_

The not-voice might as well have been a bolt of lightning straight to his core. If he had a heart to beat right now it would have jump-started him straight back to life. He twists around so fast it’d give a lesser, corporeal man whiplash. He’d recognise that beautiful voice even if it were a thousand years since he’d last experienced its grace. 

_Miella_ \- 

Her hair is down, body bare - his is too, now that he checks - but it’s her, its Xayah standing in front of him looking radiant, beautiful, completely transcendent. 

For a second all he can do is stare; mind blank. It’s like he’s seeing her for the first time. 

_I missed you_ , she says, tiny, small smile on her face and she doesn’t get time to say anything else before he tackles her, pulls her against his body with a loud, ugly cry. Unlike their bodies at their feet she feels solid and warm to his hands, and she fits tucked under his chin like she was always meant to be there. He’s whole again; it feels lighter than air, sweeter than chocolate, better than _anything_ he’s ever felt. Where they touch it’s a fire, searing away his wounds and aches until he feels shiny and new, soothed with a heart that has doubled in size. So he holds her tight and attempts to touch every part of her, folding his wings around to complete the embrace. 

_Is it really you_ ? He laughs despite his tears. They’re running down into her hair. She looks normal; she looks _healthy_ , and he couldn’t believe how much he missed it until he saw her. That skeletal, stiffening body in his other self’s arms at his feet wasn’t Xayah. _This_ was his heart light, powerful and fierce. Her spirit had endured, just as he knew it would. 

She tugs his head down, presses her forehead against his. He rests it there for a few seconds then tucks his head lower, rubbing their cheeks together before placing a kiss there. She turns her head from side to side, giving him access to both sides of her face, giving back a few of her own whenever he gives her a gap to breathe. 

It was odd. Now that she was here joy filled his every thought, his every not-breath. He didn’t want to breathe air, but rather surround himself with her until it’s all he can feel. It was joyful, though sorrow also laced his thoughts. To have been alive with her on this route, to have been able to re-live their lives and love with each ascending step, to mark their flesh as each other’s for a final time - or a final few times -would have been the ideal. Now he was simply in ataraxia – flooded with euphoria like no other at her presence, at her form wrapped against his after so long, joy at her resilient soul clinging to him with equal parts sadness and soul-crushing joy. Rakan could feel as she felt, and her emotions were a mirror of his own. 

_I don’t remember the trip_ , she admits while pressed to his chest. _At least, not much of it. Your stories though, I remember. Your voice led me here_ . 

( _Wouldn’t it be nice, so lovely and so perfect_ … ) 

_They were for you. Told just one time only, just for the most beautiful lady in the universe_ . 

It nettled at his mind. Their purpose here hadn’t changed, the magic here had unbound them and would soon join them, weaving them together like fronds in a basket, or something much smaller and homogenous. The threads of this essence would be woven as with a loom until her and him were one and the same. Two halves finally a whole. 

_Are you scared_ ? 

He places a palm to her cheek, sliding his thumb across her clan tattoo. A thousand songs flash through his mind as he stares down at her, a million stories about love and commitment and serendipity and passing forces slowly burning to something more. They were songs for someone else to write now. Xayah leans into his palm. 

_No. You’re here_ , and removes his hand from her face, slowly oh-so-slowly, to intertwine their fingers instead. On instinct his other hand slides to her waist, one thumb resting there on her hip with the rest holding firm to her lower back, holding her flush as if she’d ever want to move away. Then her positioning straightens, and she put her free hand to hold close against his back as well. They step, once then twice, a slow showing of their intimacy; just as powerful as making love. Breathe as one, step as one, so sweet, so _right_ in this way. Lowering his head, he meets her lips to move together for a few turns of the sun until stopping to press their temples together with a hum. 

_Soon_ . 

Something tells him this fever dream will end, the ecstasy here becoming a memory of two people who will never exist again. 

_Xayah_ – 

His voice is gentle, she leads her eyes shyly back up to meet him and his heart flutters at the sight. Gold, sparkling and rich with warmth. He’d missed, he’d missed, _he’d missed_ … 

_I know. I can feel it too_ . 

He watches her inhale, fighting the war of emotion coiling within her but she stabilises fast, blinking free a tear with a watery smile before dropping her head to rest it against his chest, back arm curling farther around him as they softly swayed. Her other arm slides free from his dance-leading pose and joins the other to clutch at his back. 

_Can you do one final thing for me, Mieli_ ? Her voice is soft like she’s about to sleep. 

_Anything. You know that_ . 

They’re embracing properly now, not even swaying anymore. 

_Tell me a story_ . 

Something’s happening. The clearing is becoming foggy once again, their sun setting to sink them into the next life. He nods. The last of their time. He knew exactly what it’d be about. 

_I think I know one you’ll like. But there’s one problem with it_ . 

_What’s wrong_ ? 

_I don’t know how it starts. Will you write it with me my love_ ? 

She laughs, but it sounds wet with tears. No, that wasn’t right. He wanted her to be happy, to snort at his cheesiness, or be impressed with his smoothness. Not to be sad. 

_On one condition_ . _Tell me you love me. One last time_? She asks like it’s a final goodbye. No need for her to miss him so – he was already here, will always be with her soon. Didn’t she know that? 

He’s starting to feel light, high off of her soul touching his so well and clutching her tighter only increases the sensation until he can barely stand it, yet he’s left seeking to chase it more. Xayah releases an orgasmic sigh as she sinks farther against him and Rakan starts their slow dance again even though they’re doing little more than swaying while embracing. He’s supporting most of her weight at this point. He doesn’t mind. 

_I love you_ . _You’re everything in the world to me_. 

Nothing could ever be truer. He’s loved her across the world and back, and now he’d love her into the next life. 

They no longer needed to speak things out loud. She understands him perfectly. 

_I love you too_ . To his surprise he hears this inside his head, in a voice not his own. It both delights and unnerves him. She seems just as surprised, her fingers gripping his back tighter for only a second before relaxing again. 

It comes in a trickle soon after that, slowly, then all at once in a gush; emotions first, memories of some things he also had a perspective in, other times not. 

They dance until their bodies became translucent, but all the same to souls seeking to be whole. 

The surrounding clearing was fading. Insignificant. What was there to worry about? All that mattered was in his arms right in front of him. Then, like releasing a long-held breath, their world moves, crashing together to form a whole which then just as quickly surrenders to the welcoming arms of the abyss to rest. 

_--_--_--_ 

_--_--_ 

_--_ 

\-- 

It’s dark, but he’s not alone. 

A distant ever-present piano. The sound of the world’s harmony. This isn’t a surprise to him. Rakan’s heard this before. 

There is a heavy warmth, a guiding force to rest and _wait._

The tiny, shimmering wisp’s no more significant than a tiny ember, soon to flicker out and join its brethren in dreaming in stasis. They nudge each other while in gentle descent until abruptly they flow together, joining with a rosy glow to the sound of a single, pure note, clear as a bell. 

This was how it was meant to be. 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may need to go back and add or change things later, but right now I'm leaving it as it is. I really hope you guys enjoyed.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone was wondering what I was doing instead of writing Polyphony, it was this. Also if anyone is interested in a happier mountain fic, don't worry - it's part of my work list.


End file.
